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CNN NEWSROOM

Trump's Decision on CFPB Sparks Backlash; Political Sexual Harassment Issues; Flights Canceled after Bali Volcano Erupts; Puerto Rico's Official Post-Maria Death Toll Underreported; Pope Francis is First Pontiff to Visit Myanmar; Global Outcry over Libyan Slave Auctions; Funeral Held for U.S. Border Agent; Witnessing the Birth of Zimbabwe's New Political Era; Bus Blocks Dome Explosion, Camera Man Blows Up. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired November 26, 2017 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Pakistani security forces are on the streets of Islamabad, demonstrators there are accusing a government ministry of blasphemy.

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Egypt declares three days of national mourning following the country's worst terror attack in history.

ALLEN (voice-over): In Bali, Indonesia, plumes of ash as Mount Agung continues to erupt. Thousands evacuated and airlines are assessing whether or not they can fly.

HOWELL (voice-over): A lot of smoke there.

Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, we want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. I'm George Howell.

ALLEN (voice-over): I'm Natalie Allen. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.

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HOWELL: 4:00 am on the U.S. East Coast. We begin with violent protests taking place in Pakistan. The nation called in the army but protesters in the capital city of Islamabad are not backing down.

Clashes broke out Saturday when police tried to remove them from a major intersection. At least two people were killed and the protests spread to other cities.

ALLEN: For more now, CNN's Sophia Saifi is in Islamabad and joins us live.

First of all, Sophia, have police been able to quell the protests at all? SOPHIA SAIFI, CNN PRODUCER: No, Natalie, they have not. And the situation is such, like you said earlier, the army has been called in. So you have the paramilitary troops in. The numbers have increased at this important interchange between the capital of Islamabad and its twin city of Rawalpindi.

So now you're seeing -- we're seeing a lot more protesters out there, camped on the streets, on the main roads off the capital, along with the fact is that the police were unarmed. Yes, they were using tear gas and rubber bullets but, as of last night, the police operation itself had to be suspended because really nothing came of it.

ALLEN: And the anger stems from a government minister, protesters accused of blasphemy.

Can you explain that?

SAIFI: Yes, so basically Pakistan is going to be holding general elections next year in 2018. And there was some electoral laws that were changed early October. There was a bill introduced.

Now these protesters were part of a fringe, you know, hard-line Islamic party, claiming that the electoral law had something to do with the fact that there was an oath made by lawmakers regarding the finality of the Prophet Muhammad as being the last prophet of God.

Now they're claiming there were changes to that oath. The government itself initially said that they did not make those changes, then they said there were clerical errors. All the protesters initially wanted was for the law minister to resign.

And that's what had been causing a stalemate in this process for the past three weeks and that's what made it come to a head. The law minister did not resign and that's why we saw these clashes happen early morning yesterday.

ALLEN: All right, you'll continue to follow it for us. Sophia Saifi, thank you.

HOWELL: Staying in Pakistan, the country is being criticized after releasing a terror suspect. Pakistan said Friday Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (ph) was freed from house arrest, the man you see here.

ALLEN: He's accused of plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India that killed more than 160 people, including six Americans. Now the U.S. is demanding Saeed be prosecuted.

In a statement, the White House said this, "If Pakistan does not take action to lawfully detain Saeed and charge him for his crimes, its inaction will have repercussions for bilateral relations and for Pakistan's global reputation."

Another top story we're following, Egypt's president promises to respond with brute force after assailants carried out the deadliest terror attack his country has ever endured. The air force says it destroyed militant outposts and vehicles that were used in the attack in Northern Sinai.

HOWELL: A show of force by the military, it came shortly after gunmen surrounded a packed Sufi mosque during Friday prayers setting off explosives and then spraying the building with heavy gunfire. At least 305 people were killed in that attack, including 27 children killed.

Authorities say at least one of the gunmen brandished an ISIS flag. Let's get the very latest from our senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, following the story for us, live in Cairo, Egypt.

Ben, the nation in mourning, given what happened. And still no official claim of responsibility of who is behind this attack.

What more are you learning?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so far, no claim by any credible social media source that ISIS was behind it. But as you mentioned, the state prosecutor --

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WEDEMAN: -- here in Egypt saying that one of the attackers or some of the attackers did brandish the black banner of ISIS.

Now this morning, in one of the Cairo newspapers, they're claiming that 22 of the attackers have been killed. They're quoting government security sources.

And we did hear from the state information services, saying that this attack on the mosque on Friday is, quote, "a sign of weakness, despair and collapse."

Of course, the problem is that it has been quite some time since the Egyptian authorities have allowed Egyptian journalists in any number worth mentioning or international journalists actually go to the Sinai and see for themselves. So we really have to take these claims by the government as mere claims and ones we cannot confirm.

But certainly this attack, which, as you said, left at least 305 people dead, has shocked the nation, united the Egyptians in their demand that concrete action, "brute strength" is the words that President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi used, be employed in crushing the terrorist presence in the Sinai Peninsula.

We understand that parliament is going to be meeting for an emergency session. The Egyptian parliament doesn't really wield much power but it is one more symbolic gesture in the aftermath of this, the worst- ever terrorist attack in Egypt -- George.

HOWELL: And, Ben, as you rightly point out, it is important to note that these claims can only be taken as claims for now, a very important nuance. But, of course, you know, we'll stay in touch with you as you continue to learn more.

ISIS is not believed -- ISIS is believed to be behind the attack; no official claim of responsibility yet. But we have seen this group in the past target soldiers and police. Their targets increasingly focus on civilians, though.

WEDEMAN: You don't have to go back too far to find that not only they also target civilians but they have made a concerted effort to target, for instance, Egypt's Coptic Christians.

Last December, there was an attack on a cathedral in Cairo, left more than 20 people killed; on Palm Sunday of this year, there were those twin simultaneous attacks on churches in the delta city of Tanta as well as in Alexandria.

And let's not forget that on the 31st of October, 2015, ISIS took -- claimed responsibility for the downing of the Metrojet Russian airplane that took off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing, if I recall correctly, all 224 passengers and crew members on board.

So yes, they, on a daily basis, they do target Egyptian security forces in the Sinai. But they have a long and bloody list of massacres and civilians that they have also taken credit for -- George.

HOWELL: The reporting of our senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, live for us in Cairo, Egypt, thank you. We'll stay in touch with you.

ALLEN: A new conflict now out of Washington, D.C. U.S. President Donald Trump is slamming the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the agency's now former director.

Here's what happened. On Friday, the director of the consumer watchdog agency quit and named an interim director. President Trump then appointed his budget director as the acting head.

HOWELL: And in a tweet on Saturday, the president called the bureau "a total disaster" that devastated financial institutions and says, quote, "We will bring it back to life."

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the agency, replied, tweeting this, "The only thing that will turn the CFPB into a disaster is for Donald Trump to ignore Dodd-Frank and name an acting director determined to destroy the agency."

ALLEN: Let's take a closer look at the two of the men involved here. Richard Cordray, the former director of the bureau, was appointed by former President Obama.

HOWELL: Budget director Mick Mulvaney, on the right, voted to kill that agency while he was in Congress. CNN's Boris Sanchez has the very latest on this story.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're seeing a pretty swift response from the lawmakers behind the Dodd-Frank Act that actually created the CFPB. One of them, Elizabeth Warren, saying that they should be challenged in court.

Another, Barney Frank, whose name is actually on the law itself, said that the lawmakers always intended for the agency to be independent from the rest of government.

The White House, though, is defending the president's move, saying that he has the authority to make that appointment.

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SANCHEZ: It makes for a bit of a confusing situation when it comes to who is going to be leading the agency as soon as next week. It could potentially also wind up getting disputed in court.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): Dueling appointments opening the door to a potential showdown between the White House and the country's top consumer watchdog agency.

On Friday, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray, resigned and named his chief of staff, Leandra English, as deputy director and de facto replacement.

Just a few hours later, President Trump stepped in, naming his budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, as interim director, the move setting the stage for a political and possibly legal battle and confusion over who would lead the CFPB come Monday morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much, good afternoon.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): The president's pick is also controversial because of Mulvaney's previous comments on the agency, which was created after the economic meltdown in 2008, designed to protect consumers from predatory financial institutions.

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MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: It's a wonderful example of how a bureaucracy will function if it has no accountability to anybody. It turns up being a joke, and that's what the CFPB really has been in a sick, sad kind of way because you have an institution with tremendous authority over what you all do for a living, over your businesses, over your members.

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SANCHEZ (voice-over): One of the architects of the agency, Senator Elizabeth Warren, argued that the president was overstepping his bounds and not following the law. In a tweet, she cited Dodd-Frank legislation, which states that the deputy director of the CFPB would serve as acting director in the absence or unavailability of the director.

On Saturday, the White House cited a different law, the federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, to defend the appointment as a routine move. A senior White House official told reporters on a call, quote, "We

think that this move is clearly supported by a plain reading of the vacancies act. The vacancy act is long established, used by presidents of both parties as a routine function. And we believe this act is consistent with that long established practice."

And according to another administration official, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has already signed off on Mulvaney's appointment; while a senior White House official said that the administration hopes the dispute does not end up in court, they are ready to fight for the appointment.

SANCHEZ: We're also getting a response from Mick Mulvaney himself. In a statement to CNN, he says, quote, "I believe Americans deserve a CFPB that seeks to protect them while ensuring free and fair markets for all consumers.

"Financial services are the engine of American democratic capitalism and we need to let it work."

We should point out a source close to Mick Mulvaney said that it is not likely that he winds up being the permanent pick to lead that agency, that source telling us that Mick Mulvaney is very happy at his current role as the director of the Office of Management and Budget and that he didn't really envision himself leading the CFPB -- Boris Sanchez, CNN, in Washington.

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HOWELL: Boris, thank you for the report.

A little more than two weeks now until one of the most controversial U.S. Senate races in recent history takes place. Republican candidate Roy Moore is denying sexual misconduct allegations against him while many of Moore's fellow Republicans want him to leave the race that he remains defiant and steadfast in continuing.

ALLEN: Many people have spoken out about this race, of course. Another one, former basketball star and Alabama native, Charles Barkley, speaking out on the Moore controversy here.

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CHARLES BARKLEY, FORMER NBA STAR: Roy Moore is running with Steve Bannon as his right-hand man, a white separatist. I'm not even going to get into the women stuff but a guy -- how can you be a white separatist and represent all the constituents in your state?

I mean, you know, everybody is going crazy over this sexual allegations. Roy Moore, to me, when he brought in Steve Bannon, should have been disqualified.

I don't understand. I mean, to me, that's a -- how can you have a guy, who is running with a white separatist, running for a political office? We got a lot of black people in the state who are amazing people. But to run a campaign with a guy as your chief advocate, who is a white nationalist, a white separatist, that should have disqualified Roy Moore way before this women stuff came up.

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ALLEN: For perspective now on the Senate race, we're joined by James Davis, dean of the School of Economics and Political Science at the University of St. Galen.

Thank you for joining us.

JAMES DAVIS, UNIVERSITY OF ST. GALEN: Good morning, Natalie.

ALLEN: Let's start with the controversy over Mr. Moore, whom Charles Barkley was talking about. First, let's listen to campaign ads from the Senate race by Moore, the Republican and an ad from his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones. Jones' ad includes the women who've accused Moore of sexual misconduct. It also includes Ivanka Trump.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): They were girls when Roy Moore immorally pursued them --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): -- now they are women, witnesses to us all of his disturbing conduct.

Will we make their abuser a U.S. senator?

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Forty years of honorable service, Roy Moore has been intensely scrutinized and not a hint of scandal. But four weeks before the election, false allegations.

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ALLEN: I misspoke. There is another ad by the Democrat, which includes quotes by Ivanka Trump, because she believes the women.

So where are we in this race?

Is it going to come down to whether people believe the allegations?

Or is it for conservatives; bottom line, they'll vote for a conservative regardless?

DAVIS: Well, you've put the question right, Natalie. This is a question of whether we're going to have conservative Christian Republicans in the state of Alabama vote their values or vote their tribe.

And I think this is a question that we're all asking. Roy Moore is obviously out of the mainstream of American politics. And he's really on the fringes of Alabama politics.

But it is clear that, you know, the base of his support, the base of Ronald Reagan -- excuse me -- the base of Donald Trump's support, the Bannon wing of the Republican Party, is rallying to this cause. They don't want to see Mr. Lewis (sic) -- Mr. Jones elected. And so it is going to be a thriller to the very end.

ALLEN: And where do you put Donald Trump standing by Mr. Moore in all of this?

DAVIS: I think he's rolled the dice and he's decided that he made a mistake in the primaries, when he supported the opponent to Mr. Moore. And he's decided that he's not going to make that mistake again.

He's afraid; he can't alienate his base. If he alienates his base, there is really nothing left to his support. So I think he's going to either stand or go down with Mr. Moore.

ALLEN: The vote is just days away. We'll continue to watch it closely, of course.

Meantime, a current senator, Democrat Al Franken, is one of the powerful men who allegedly has a woman problem; accusations by four, accusing Franken of inappropriate sexual behavior. He has apologized and said he has no plans to step down. In a few hours he'll talk with the media in his home state.

How might he go about continuing to apologize, if he does that and, at the same time, hold on to his job?

DAVIS: Right. I think Al Franken has to make clear that he acted inappropriately. He understands that now. And I think the strategy he has to pursue is to draw some space between the abuse of power types of allegations that are being raised against many individuals, like Mr. Weinstein in Hollywood, and just inappropriate behavior but behavior which is not an abuse of authority or an abuse of power.

I think that's the fine line he has to walk here. He has to make it clear that he understands his behavior was inappropriate but that he, in no way, abused his office. If he can't make that claim, them I would argue that his days, too, are numbered.

ALLEN: We'll wait and see. James Davis, thanks so much for talking with us. Appreciate it.

DAVIS: Thank you.

HOWELL: Still ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, a volcano covers the sky over Bali with massive clouds of ash. Wow. Just take a look at that. We'll tell you how it is impacting people on the ground and affecting planes trying to pass overhead. Stay with us. NEWSROOM right back after the break.

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ALLEN: You know it is bad when Indonesia is warning planes to steer clear of danger in the sky over Bali after this volcano sent giant plumes of ash and steam into the air Saturday night. And it is still erupting.

HOWELL: Indonesia raised its aviation warning from orange to red to signal that threat. Several airlines including Qantas, Virgin and AirAsia canceled or diverted flights late Saturday that left some travelers stranded at airports without too much information.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had planned to go back to Adelaide in South Australia, this evening. We actually got here quite early. But now we found that the flights have been canceled.

Now we weren't notified by Jetstar (ph) in advance of us getting here, so we're very disappointed about that. I would have expected the airline to have had some idea as to when our flight was going to be canceled. To arrive here at such late notice and then not be notified and having had to wait is very disappointing.

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ALLEN: I wonder if you can blame the airlines for knowing about the volcanic eruption. I don't know. But Ivan Cabrera will explain it all to us.

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ALLEN: Coming up here, a historic visit for Pope Francis and a delicate balancing act. He heads soon to Myanmar and human rights groups want him to speak out about what is happening to thousands of Rohingya Muslims there. That's coming up.

HOWELL: Plus two months after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, the exact numbers of victims is still unknown. Coming up, why that number is so hard to pin down.

CNN NEWSROOM is live from Atlanta, Georgia, this hour, simulcast on CNN U.S. here in the states, CNN International worldwide. Stay with us.

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HOWELL: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Good to have you with us. I'm George Howell.

ALLEN: I'm Natalie Allen. Our headlines this hour.

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ALLEN: It has been two months since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico. The official death toll is 55.

HOWELL: Right. But a CNN exclusive survey of funeral homes found much higher number of lives that were lost. Leyla Santiago tries to find out why those two vastly different numbers exist.

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LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So here's why the numbers are so important. Experts tell us that if you don't have a good grasp on how people died, where people died or why, then it could be a missed opportunity to protect people in the future. It's the reason we decided to look into the death toll and what we found, there are several reasons to question the accuracy of the death toll.

SANTIAGO (voice-over): These are the images they'd rather remember, the ones kept during Jose Pepe Sanchez joking with his family. But there's another image his daughter Roxana cannot stop thinking about. The moment she opened the door and found him on the ground.

ROXANA SANCHEZ, DAUGHTER OF JOSE PEPE SANCHEZ: (Foreign language spoken).

SANTIAGO: So she says if Maria had not passed straight through here she believes her dad would still be alive today.

SANTIAGO (voice-over): She believes his nerves, stressed during Hurricane Maria, led to a heart attack when Maria struck in September. He had had a heart attack in February but the family says he had recovered -- boarded up windows himself the day before the storm.

Just minutes before Maria made landfall, she tells us her father complained of breathing complications. When her uncle called 911, he says help was not available in the interior part of the island.

SANTIAGO: No one from the government has come to ask questions about the cause or the situation surrounding his death. SANTIAGO (voice-over): Over the same month last year, the number of deaths in Puerto Rico increased by 472. The government is reporting 55 people died at the hands of Hurricane Maria.

HECTOR PESQUERA, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, PUERTO RICO: It's accurate based on the factual information that we received, yes.

SANTIAGO: This is Puerto Rico's secretary of public safety, in charge of the death count.

CARMEN YULIN CRUZ, MAYOR, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO: It appears, for whatever reason, that the death toll is much higher than what has been reported.

SANTIAGO: Politicians, news outlets like CNN have raised questions about the accuracy of those numbers so we decided to count for ourselves.

CNN called 279 funeral homes. We were only able to reach about half of them. We asked how many of the deaths were believed to be related to Maria.

Despite the official death toll, they claim 499 hurricane-related deaths in the month after the storm. That's nine times the government's numbers.

SANTIAGO: Why the gap?

PESQUERA: Because as I said before I work on factual. I can't believe -- I can't work on I believe.

SANTIAGO (voice-over): So we described Pepe's case.

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SANTIAGO: The gentleman is at home, he has a stroke. The person with him calls 911 and 911 says we can't get to him in time because 150 mile per hour winds are pounding us right now.

PESQUERA: Sure.

SANTIAGO: Is that a hurricane-related death?

PESQUERA: Absolutely.

SANTIAGO: OK. Allow me to introduce you to Jose -- Pepe. That was his case.

SANTIAGO (voice-over): A case not included in Puerto Rico's death toll.

The discrepancy begins here, the death certificate. A doctor marked Pepe's death natural. Cases marked natural aren't supposed to go to forensics and forensics says if they don't get the cases there's no way to investigate if it's related to the hurricane. On the certificate, doctors are not obligated to report if the hurricane contributed to the death.

PESQUERA: Quite frankly, they should, but you're right. Will they be obligated to do it by law? No, but I still submit to you that there's a moral and ethical responsibility to do that.

SANTIAGO: Pesquera plans on asking legislators to change the law and require doctors to flag natural disasters on death certificates. And that's not the only issue. He admits he needs people to flag cases, too.

PESQUERA: And you're the first person -- the first media outlet -- and I'll say it publicly -- that brings in information for us to verify.

SANTIAGO: But is that the media's job or is that your job?

PESQUERA: So it's our job to take care of 2,900 bodies doing every month to see that the doctor -- the doctor certified that the deaths occurred in the way that it happened.

SANTIAGO: Pesquera tells us he will investigate the multiple cases CNN brought to his attention.

SANTIAGO: Why is the government of Puerto Rico not double-checking this? Why isn't the government of Puerto Rico doing what CNN did, calling these funeral homes one-by-one, visiting these families one- by-one?

PESQUERA: Funeral homes, to begin with, are not the person to tell us what the people died or did not die of.

SANTIAGO (voice-over): He says families should be notifying the government if they believe Hurricane Maria is responsible for a death. Loved ones like Pepe's wife who tells us at the time, the priority was not to make sure their loved one was counted in a statistic. Rather, to make sure he had a proper goodbye.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking foreign language).

SANTIAGO: They were married when she was 20 and she misses him.

SANTIAGO (voice-over): Families trying to make sense of tragedy and a death toll.

SANTIAGO: According to forensics, they sent people to funeral homes, to cemeteries, hospitals to look into suspicious cases. And forensics says every time they found false claims -- even called them rumors.

You heard the secretary in our piece say that he is willing to look into the specific cases that CNN brought to his attention. He gave us his word that he will investigate and, if justified, add to the death toll -- Leyla Santiago, CNN, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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HOWELL: Excellent reporting, Leyla, thank you so much. ALLEN: Remarkable story.

Global outcry is growing after an CNN exclusive investigation revealed African migrants are being sold as slaves in Libya.

HOWELL: Critics say some of the blame falls on European countries, which have relied on Libya to prevent migrants from crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Our Melissa Bell filed this report from Paris after protests on Saturday.

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MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was the third protest in Paris in a week, protests against the slavery that is currently taking place in Libya, protests provoked by the airing of those images on CNN.

The first protests that took place here a week ago on Saturday had not even planned for the anger of those who came out was such that the police really had trouble containing the protests.

There was another protest yesterday and further one today, the numbers down a bit. But the sense of determination of those who were there still very strong. They believe that they need to keep coming out on to the street until action is taken.

And it isn't just from the streets where the pressure for action is coming here in France. The French president Emmanuel Macron is very much leading the call for action from the United Nations.

For now, of course, all eyes very much on that Libyan inquiry to see what will come out of that, about the extent of what happened and what reprisals have been taken as a result.

But clearly there is a great deal of anger and I think, in Europe, a great deal of outrage that the responsibility is at least partly shared by the European Union. You'll remember that the reason that Europe managed to bring the number of those making it to their shores down is this deal it had with Libyan authorities.

What happens now is that the migrants who find themselves in the Mediterranean get taken back to Libya. The European Union has, over the course of the last few months, been working with Libya to send as many migrants as possible back to a country where we now know that those sorts of appalling human rights abuses exist --

[04:40:00]

BELL: -- and it was CNN's images, it was the fact of those pictures, I think, that provoked that call for action from authorities here in France but also the anger on the streets that we have been seeing -- Melissa Bell, CNN, in Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: Melissa, thank you. Still ahead here on NEWSROOM, Zimbabwe is transition into a new political era. Up next, some personal takeaways from our Farai Sevenzo, explaining what it is like to witness his country build a new future. Stay with us.

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ALLEN: The U.S. Border Patrol agent, Rogelio Martinez, who died from injuries he suffered while on duty, has been buried.

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HOWELL (voice-over): It is not exactly clear what led to Martinez's death but President Trump has used this tragedy to argue a border wall should be built. Our Scott McLean has more from El Paso, Texas.

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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. Border Patrol agent Rogelio Martinez was laid to rest on Saturday. His flag-draped casket was carried by six members of his family into this Catholic Church in El Paso for his funeral service before being taken to a nearby cemetery, where he was buried.

Family, friends and scores of law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents came from across the state and across the country to pay their respects.

What certainly makes this difficult for his family, particularly difficult, is that they don't know very much about how Agent Martinez died.

What we do know is that, last Saturday night, he was searching a culvert area along the interstate about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Beyond that, what happened is unclear. But Martinez and another agent who arrived later were taken to the hospital with head injuries and broken bones.

There is no body camera video from either agent and there is no dash camera video from either of their vehicles. And the one --

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MCLEAN: -- person that investigators know was a witness to at least part of what happened, that second agent, told his union representative that he can't remember anything. He remembers coming into work and then nothing after that.

His union rep says he walks with a cane and has stitches and a bruise on the back of his head. The president, the governor and Texas senator Ted Cruz have all pointed to this story as evidence of the need to beef up security along the southern border.

But the reality is that the FBI, which is actually leading this investigation, either will not or cannot say what it believes happened. It will only call this a possible assault -- Scott McLean, CNN, El Paso, Texas.

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HOWELL: Scott, thank you.

The U.S. Navy is now naming the three sailors who went missing after their plane crashed off Okinawa, Japan, Wednesday. They are as follows, Lt. Steven Combs from Florida; Aviation Boatswain's Mate Airman Matthew Chialastri of Louisiana and Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Apprentice Bryan Grosso, also from Florida.

ALLEN: The Navy says a total of 11 crew and passengers were headed to an aircraft carrier when their transport plane crashed into the ocean. Eight people were rescued. After a day-long search and rescue operation, the Navy called it off. The cause is still under investigation.

Argentina's navy says it is not giving up the search for that missing submarine. We have new video which shows equipment being used to find the ARA San Juan. The sub went missing 11 days ago with 44 people on board.

HOWELL: What may have been an explosion was detected near its last known location and the crew would likely be low on air by now. Their families are desperate for any signs of good news and grateful for all of the help in searching.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): A lot of help. A lot of warmth. A lot of support. Well, you can't get full comfort but I am very thankful from my heart. I'm thankful because I feel that the 44 have support, along with us, the closest family members.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: That was a San Juan crew family member.

Teams from around the world have joined the search for the sub.

Now to the political transition taking place in Zimbabwe. That country's high court has ruled that the military takeover there was constitutional. The former vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has been sworn in as the new president.

ALLEN: He had been fired by former leader, Robert Mugabe, who ruled for almost four decades. CNN's Farai Sevenzo was born in Zimbabwe and he witnessed firsthand how the Mugabe regime collapsed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) FARAI SEVENZO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It took us seven days, seven days from the point I flew in from Nairobi, which is my usual patch, to this minor mini revolution, non-coup, apparent coup, to fall down.

Everywhere, they're coming from all over the place. Look at this. Look at this.

This is my home. This is where I went to school. This is where my relatives are. This is where my great-grandmother would tell me stories, which made me into a filmmaker, actually.

Oh! That's so heavy. That's so big.

This is my nephew, Neil (ph), with whom I'm most pleased.

NEIL (PH), SEVENZO'S NEPHEW: I want the new president to be better. I want him to be better, more better, 100 percent better than Robert Mugabe. I don't want him being corrupt. I don't want him to have polices just beating people for no reason, when they did nothing.

No tear gas in the city, just peace. No rubbish. No potholes. I want our environment to be better, more better.

SEVENZO: As we headed into town, it was obvious. It was in the people's faces, the drivers next to my car, that the hooters and the horns going off, you knew the moment had happened.

Yes, that's right. (Speaking foreign language). Thank you, sir. Thank you. And there you have it. I mean, people, (INAUDIBLE) it is absolutely incredible. (INAUDIBLE). The joy. (INAUDIBLE) Soldiers are sitting there. And they are trying to contain the people.

You could feel this electricity in the air. They said, that, you know, there is different feet in the same shoes but all they needed was change. But any change from what the country had --

[04:50:00]

SEVENZO: -- is a positive step. Now is that how Emmerson Mnangagwa actually effects his government.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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(SPORTS)

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ALLEN: All right, we've got a question for you.

What happens when a city bus gets between a camera and a big spectacle, like a building demolition?

HOWELL: You hate to miss a moment like that. So right here in Atlanta, just less than a block away from CNN World Headquarters, it wasn't the building that made the biggest explosion. Jeanne Moos explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When the Georgia Dome imploded Monday, cameras caught it from lots of cool angles -- except for this angle, where the camera operators were the ones to implode.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). Get out of the way, bus.

MOOS (voice-over): Weather Channel digital video producer Jason Rudge (ph) was behind this camera.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were all kind of whispering in anger.

[04:55:00]

MOOS (voice-over): "An epic photo bomb," the Weather Channel called it. Critics weren't so kind. "Amature," their spelling, "should have been on the other side of the road."

Everyone keeps saying, how come this idiot set up at a bus stop?

Jason explained he and half a dozen other crews were on a media platform. The road was supposed to be closed. And the bus driver --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wanted to stop and catch the show herself.

MOOS (voice-over): MARTA, Metro Atlanta's Transit Authority, jokingly tweeted, "We sincerely apologize for ruining your live shot for the dome implosion. We found this footage, in case you need it.

MOOS: Is there anything you want to say to that bus driver?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not mad at her because if I was driving by, I would have wanted to see it myself.

MOOS: And did you happen to notice the side, on the side of the bus?

MOOS (voice-over): "Spot a stroke fast," it read. For instance, stroke induced by a bus blocking the shot they waited 3.5 hours to get.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of the way, bus.

MOOS (voice-over): Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: Look, I get it. So that was Monday morning. And -- I staked out a room at a building just nearby the CNN Center, high floor, so that I could see it. If something were to get in the way of that, after all the time I put into trying to find the right spot, I would be livid.

ALLEN: We would bleeping you out, too, perhaps.

HOWELL: Yes, you would.

ALLEN: We have enough angles of it. Sorry he didn't get it but we have seen it from every angle. Goodbye, Georgia Dome.

Thank you for watching this hour. I'm Natalie Allen.

HOWELL: And I'm George Howell. Natalie and I'll be right back after the break. NEWSROOM sticks around.